1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographic processing system comprising: a printing unit for forming photographic prints based on image data read out from an image forming medium; a recording medium writing device for writing the image data in a recording medium; and a collecting region for collecting the photographic prints and/or the recording medium in an order unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a photographic processing system reads out a frame image of a developed negative film serving as an image forming medium, and prints off the image under exposure to light on a photographic material based on the read-out image data. The photographic material, on which the image is printed off under the exposure to light, is subjected to developing and drying, and then, is discharged as a finished photographic print to the outside of an apparatus. The discharged photographic print is transported to, for example, an collecting unit, which is called a sorter. The collecting unit is configured such that, for example, numerous trays are driven to be circulated, so that photographic prints of one order are placed on one tray.
However, there also is a service by which the image data read out from the frame image of the developed negative film is written in a recording medium. In general, a CD-R is frequently used as such a recording medium. The image data written and recorded in the CD-R is used to be managed or the like by the use of a personal computer or the like.
There is provided a CD-R writing device for writing the data in the CD-R, for writing the read-out image data in the CD-R. Furthermore, an index image is normally printed on a label side of the CD-R. It can be recognized what image is written in the CD-R based on the index image.
However, the photographic processing system in the prior art has experienced problems as follows: namely, in the case where there are both of a request that a frame image of a negative film should be printed and a request that image data should be written in a CD-R, a printing unit forms photographic prints, and further, a CD-R writing device writes the image data in the CD-R. When the finished photographic prints and the CD-R are given to a customer, both of the photographic prints and the CD-R are put together into the same DP bag.
At this time, a position where the finished CD-R is collected and a position where the finished photographic prints are collected are completely different from each other. Consequently, the finished photographic prints and CD-R must be collated with each other in order to prevent any mistake of the order. In view of this, it is necessary to collate the images formed on the photographic prints with the index image printed on the label side of the CD-R. There have arisen problems that this work is cumbersome and takes much time.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of the above-mentioned cases. An object of the present invention is to provide the photographic processing system in which a collating work can be simplified in the case where there are requests for forming the photographic prints and for writing the image data in the recording medium such as a CD-R.